‘Phantom Pain’ sneaks its way into gamers’ hearts

Snake crouches through the bushes, and takes his position on a cliff overlooking a guard post. He gets out his binoculars and scans the area; he spots seven soviet soldiers in the vicinity and makes his way over to the post. Snake pulls out his tranquilizer pistol and silences six of his foes, taking a hold of the seventh. He interrogates the soldier and is shown to the location of some priceless diamonds. This is only one of the ways in which you could take on your enemy and gain resources.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is the latest installment in the saga of Metal Gear games that spans nearly three decades. It is the first installment since Konami dropped the fourth edition, Guns of the Patriots, in the fall of 2008. The game takes place nine years after the events of Ground Zeroes, the prologue to the game released in the winter of 2013.

The Phantom Pain offers numerous ways for the player to immerse themselves in a vast open world of Afghanistan. Control which missions you take on from your Aerial Command Center, even set which music plays as you enter or exit a mission. Every decision you make will come from your iDroid, and from this device you can set markers, select which missions to undertake, and develop new weapons to be used at your disposal.

In “The Phantom Pain”, the player portrays Big Boss, now known as Punished “Venom” Snake. Big Boss was last playable in 2004’s “Snake Eater”.

In Phantom Pain, it is pertinent that you build up the Diamond Dogs regime to take down enemy combatants in game. You can do this by either taking in volunteers after missions, or by extracting possible recruits from within the battlefield using the new Fulton Extraction Device. This feature will come in handy, as you can gain access to new weaponry, and even language interpreters to make your interrogations more efficient.

The better you build up Diamond Dogs, the more access you have to better weapons and items to develop, such as an automatic tranquilizer SMG with a suppressor.

Perhaps you don’t want to jump straight into the story mode and just have fun with the large open world, have at it. The true beauty of Phantom Pain is the freedom it allows the players. You have the option of playing through the 50 story missions and nearly 150 side ops missions on your own time. Additionally, the game’s mechanics encourage the gamer to employ different strategies and techniques in the way they complete missions. Would you rather stealth your way to victory or use guerilla warfare to fight to glory? The choice is all to the player. On top of the amazing game mechanics comes a story so driven and enthusiastic, you can hardly contain yourself when you realize that this is indeed the final Metal Gear title we will see from video game legend Hideo Kojima.

With a game so massive it nearly overwhelms, Phantom Pain is a great farewell to a beloved franchise that has been a major part of video game history.